


Post Traumatic

by Magnificent_Beast



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnificent_Beast/pseuds/Magnificent_Beast
Summary: The battle with Voldemort is won, but several people important to Harry have died without knowing what he knows now, and he desperately wishes for another chance to talk to the dead. He is recalled by the realization that he feels he owes some words to someone who is still alive.





	Post Traumatic

It was the day following Harry’s defeat of Voldemort. After they had slept in Gryffindor Tower, Harry told Ron and Hermione he needed some more words with them alone, and they had escaped to an empty classroom. Harry was talking excitedly.

“I didn’t have enough time to talk to them. I have to talk to Lupin. Lupin died thinking Snape had betrayed us. He has to know the truth, and about Dumbledore too. He always felt guilty about having kept a secret from Dumbledore. He deserves to know that Dumbledore had an even bigger secret, that he kept quiet out of shame too. I have to tell him!”

“Harry, Lupin’s dead!” Hermione looked really worried.

“You need some time to recover, mate,” said Ron, clapping him on the back.

“And my mother! I have to tell her about Snape! She only knew he became a Death Eater, not that he still loved her! That he protected me for her sake! He was alone all his life, and he lived and died for her!”

“And your dad?” said Ron. “Does he need to know that too?”

“Yes, he does!”

Hermione, looking even more worried, put a hand on his arm. “Harry, you can’t talk to the dead,” she said gently.

“Yes, I can,” he said more calmly. “I told you, I talked to them in the forest. I had the stone, and it works. I remember the way I went, and the area where I left it. I can find it again. I have to talk to the four of them, and to Severus too. I have to tell him that I don’t blame him for anything.” It was the first time they had ever heard him call Severus Snape by his first name.

“Harry, we heard exactly what you told us,” said Hermione. “They were the ones who told you things, who gave you wisdom and encouragement. You can’t tell the dead anything they don’t already know. People can’t know what happens after they’re dead.”

“What about the portraits?” said Harry. “They find out about things after they’re dead.”

“That’s a fair point,” said Ron to Hermione, who shot him a furious look. “I think we should all have our portraits painted, so we can be sure to know what happens after we’re dead.”

“Well, maybe it’s the Muggle in me,” she fired back at him, “but I’d like to finally get a break some day.”

But Harry had risen and was heading for the classroom door.

“Where are you going?” said his friends at once.

“To the forest,” he said distantly, seeming to stare toward something the others could not see.

It was Ron who stood up and blocked the door. “You’ve already made that decision, mate. You were the sensible one, remember?”

Harry tried to push him aside, but was thrown back instantly, and he realized in that moment that Ron was physically stronger than he was. He also realized that Ron would only obstruct him as far as he could do so without hurting him. He wrestled with him again.

“Don’t make us use our wands, Harry,” said Hermione in a trembling voice.

He turned to see that Hermione had drawn her wand and was pointing it at him, and though she cast no hex, he already felt pain.

“Hermione, don’t you understand…”

Ron spoke from behind him in a quiet, significant tone that Harry vaguely remembered once hearing from Ron’s father.

“Would you like me to raid Dumbledore’s tomb for the Elder Wand? Because that’s what I’ll do if you go after that stone.”

Harry turned to face him. “No, you won’t,” he said with certainty. “You’re bluffing.”

“Try me.”

“I can’t. You’re blocking the door.”

Ron moved away from the door. Harry met his eyes and faltered.

“You wouldn’t—desecrate a tomb, would you? You wouldn’t—do like Voldemort?”

“That’s right, Harry,” Hermione interjected quickly. “We leave the dead in peace, don’t we?”

Harry turned to her again. “I don’t want to steal from my loved ones. I want to increase their peace. The more people understand, the more they can forgive.”

“Harry, plenty of your loved ones are still alive. You have enough to do explaining everything to everyone who’s still alive.”

Ignoring her, Harry turned to Ron again. “OK, I won’t get the stone and you won’t get the wand. But you have to AK me, so I can die again like I did before, and talk to the others like I talked to Dumbledore, and then I have to come back to life.”

“You’re mental!” said Ron, looking as worried as Hermione.

“Harry, you didn’t die. People don’t come back from the dead. Voldemort still couldn’t kill you because of your mother’s sacrifice, and him taking your blood, remember?”

“But I only know that because Dumbledore explained it to me! How could I have seen him if I wasn’t dead? He was dead! I went to some kind of afterlife and I saw him there!”

“Harry,” said Hermione seriously, “I think you must have imagined Dumbledore telling you things you already knew but hadn’t figured out yet. How do you know this didn’t all happen inside your head?”

Harry finally reflected, because Hermione was so clever, he wondered whether there could actually be something in what she said. “But that’s what Dumbledore said. I asked him whether this was all happening inside my head, or whether it was real, and he said of course it was all happening inside my head, but why on earth should that mean that it wasn’t real?”

Ron looked at Hermione. “You know, that really does sound like the kind of mental thing Dumbledore would say.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Harry _knew_ Dumbledore. He could _imagine_ the kind of thing that Dumbledore would say.”

But Harry was sure that Dumbledore had told him things that he could not possibly have already known.

Hermione had not given up. “I’m still alive, Ron’s still alive, Ginny’s still alive. The rest of the Weasleys are still alive, except one. Neville’s still alive, Luna’s still alive…”

“We’re your family now,” said Ron fiercely. “You’re going to live with us, remember?”

But Harry had fixed on something Hermione had said. “Luna,” he said. “I have to talk to Luna.”

“Yes, yes!” said Hermione encouragingly. “You have to talk to Luna!” She looked to Ron for support.

“Yes, you have to talk to Luna,” said Ron without enthusiasm, for he thought it was wrong that Harry should be keener to talk to Luna than to his sister.

“I have to go find her. Maybe she’s still in the great hall.”

“Why would she be there?”

“Because that was the last place I saw her.” And before they could remind him that that was yesterday, he was out the door.

When he got there, he saw that the crowd and commotion of the previous day was greatly diminished. But he saw Luna near the window, decking it with something that looked like eucalyptus branches. He walked over to her, ignoring the other people vying for his attention. “Hi Harry,” she said. He didn’t bother to ask her what she was doing.

“Luna, I want to apologize to you,” he said seriously.

She looked baffled. “Whatever for, Harry?”

“Do you remember one time there was mistletoe, and I moved away when you moved toward it? And you said it was just as well, because of the Nargles?”

“I don’t remember, but you’re right Harry, because Nargles tend to hang out in mistletoe.”

“Well, I think I was insensitive. I’m afraid you may have gotten the impression that I didn’t want to kiss you. It’s just that I was trying to go out with Cho Chang, and I didn’t want her to hear I’d been kissing someone else.”

“Under mistletoe is not the best place to kiss someone, Harry, because Nargles like to drop on people, and it’s very distracting.”

Harry didn’t laugh.

“And when I invited you to Slughorn’s party, and I said ‘as a friend,’ it isn’t that I wouldn’t have wanted you as a date, but I was trying to get Ginny to go out with me, and I didn’t want her to think…”

“Oh, I know all that, Harry,” she said, and Harry felt rather sad, because neither of the things he had said had really been true. “But I was flattered that you asked me as a friend. That way I knew it was me you liked, not just my body. I think you liked me more than your friend Ron liked Lavender Brown.”

Not for the first time, Harry was startled by her bluntness. But he pursued his original purpose.

“What I mean is, I’m sorry if I ever treated you as if I didn’t realize you were as sensitive as anyone else would be, and as if you weren’t…” he was looking for a word that would not sound crass. “I mean, as if I thought it would be out of the question for me to go out with you, because you were different…I mean you are different, but in a good way.”

“Thanks, Harry.”

“Can I give you a hug?”

“I’d love it if you gave me a hug. No one ever wants to give me a hug, except my father.”

Had none of the other students changed? Harry embraced her and, feeling a surge of attraction he was not expecting, hastily let her go. Then, fearing he may have committed another _faux pas_ , he patted her affectionately on the back. But she had looked up and seen her father coming into the hall.

“Daddy!” she called, and ran into his arms.

“My little girl!”

Harry was flooded with relief, for he hadn’t even known whether Xenophilius was still alive. When Xenophilius spotted Harry, they walked back toward him.

“Harry Potter, I must beg your forgiveness.”

“No—“

“I never wanted to turn you over to them, but they had my Luna, and she’s all the family I have left.”

“I understand,” said Harry with feeling, _better than he’ll ever know_ , he thought, and made to go, because he was afraid he would start to cry. Then another memory came to him: he thought that Hermione had performed a spell to make Xenophilius forget what had happened that day. Who knew how much he had forgotten, or what he had found out afterwards? Perhaps Xenophilius was referring to the one damning piece in his newspaper, which had followed months of support. Harry turned to him again.

“Mr. Lovegood, I hope you’ll have _The Quibbler_ out again soon, because people have been reading lies for too long in _The_ _Daily Prophet_ ,” he said.

“Thank you, Harry. We need to rebuild, but I hope to be up and running soon.”

“See you later, Luna. Goodbye, Mr. Lovegood.”

As he walked out of the hall toward the remains of the staircase, he overheard Luna say, “You see, Daddy? I told you he was becoming more clear-headed.”

At the foot of the staircase he ran into Ron.

“So what did you have to tell Loony Lovegood? That you saw the Blibbering Humdinger?”

To Ron’s surprise, Harry slapped him.

“How can you still talk about her that way after everything she’s been through with us? She saved my life!”

Ron did not remember any such thing, and thought Harry might have a motive for imagining it. “Well, I guess we know who you care about,” he said coldly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought you were Ginny’s boyfriend.”

“I thought so too.”

“Well then, start acting like it, or it’ll be over! You’ve hardly talked to her since the battle!”

“Start getting your nose out of your sister’s business,” said Harry just as coldly. “Start noticing what year this is. If Ginny isn’t satisfied with me, she can dump me herself.”

This was too much for Ron, because he thought Harry sounded as if he really did want Ginny to dump him. He turned and started walking up the stairs.

Harry sat down at the foot of the stairs, exhausted. He hoped no one would expect any more leadership from him in the near future.


End file.
